


Bain à la Grenouillère

by iam93percentstardust



Series: Starkbucks Bingo 2020 [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Inspired by Art, M/M, See End Notes for More Details, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iam93percentstardust/pseuds/iam93percentstardust
Summary: They were supposed to come here for their anniversary.Three years, the longest Tony’s ever made it in a relationship. Pepper had been the only one to even come close and she had only lasted six months before they’d mutually decided that they could either be friends and co-workers or lovers but not all three. At the time, Tony had thought that a good partner was easy to find but a good CEO, not so much. After she’d left though, after a string of failed romances, he’d revised his opinion but by then, she had Happy and he would never begrudge them that.Three years. Three years of bliss and happiness and feeling like he’d never known love before he found Bucky.Well, almost three years, he supposes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Starkbucks Bingo 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772419
Comments: 12
Kudos: 273
Collections: StarkBucksBingo2020





	Bain à la Grenouillère

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous said:  
> So this past month has been awful adn i need some angst + happy e and i was wondering if maybe you could give us a snippet of buckytony with Bucky doing smt stupid and they break up but then they make up in the end.?
> 
> [Inspired by Claude Monet's Bain à la Grenouillère](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_%C3%A0_la_Grenouill%C3%A8re#/media/File:La_Grenouill%C3%A8re_MET_DT833.jpg)
> 
> Title: Bain à la Grenouillère  
> Collaborator Name: iam93percentstardust  
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391056  
> Square Filled: B2 - Based on a Painting  
> Ship/Main Pairing: Winteriron  
> Rating: G  
> Major Tags & Triggers: Character thought to be cheating  
> Word Count: 1.6k

They were supposed to come here for their anniversary.

Three years, the longest Tony’s ever made it in a relationship. Pepper had been the only one to even come close and she had only lasted six months before they’d mutually decided that they could either be friends and co-workers or lovers but not all three. At the time, Tony had thought that a good partner was easy to find but a good CEO, not so much. After she’d left though, after a string of failed romances, he’d revised his opinion but by then, she had Happy and he would never begrudge them that.

Three years. Three years of bliss and happiness and feeling like he’d never known love before he found Bucky.

Well, almost three years, he supposes.

He stops walking along the riverbank and looks at the people eating in the nearby restaurant. Bucky had wanted to eat here, he remembers. The floating restaurant, the one painted by Monet. Or maybe it was Renoir. He could never remember which. He just remembers seeing the painting in the Met and Bucky squeezing his hand and saying, “One day, sweet thing, we’re gonna eat there.”

Tony had gotten reservations for that restaurant, almost a year ago honestly. He’d thought they would still be together by then. He scoffs inwardly. How naïve he’d been. He should have known they wouldn’t last the year. It had just about broken his heart when he called last week to cancel the reservation, this last reminder that he and Bucky weren’t Tony-and-Bucky anymore. They were apart now.

Separate.

Alone.

He doesn’t know why he’d kept the reservations for the rest of the trip. Nostalgia, maybe. Masochism, certainly. He knows it wasn’t his fault he and Bucky had broken up—except that he can’t help but feel that it was. Maybe if he’d been better, Bucky wouldn’t have started staying out at nights and coming back long after Tony’s already in bed. Maybe Bucky wouldn’t have started lying to him about where he was going. Maybe, when he had finally confronted him about it, Bucky wouldn’t have said that he was cheating on him.

It had sounded like a lie. Tony _wanted_ it to be a lie. It had sounded like someone who was doing something else but was scrounging for something to say because whatever they were actually doing was so bad that they somehow thought that saying they were cheating was better than the truth. He wasn’t sure which was actually worse: if Bucky was cheating or if Bucky was lying about the cheating to cover for the truth. Either way, it didn’t matter. If Bucky was cheating, it hurt and if Bucky was covering up for something else, it still hurt. They’d fought that night, their worst fight since the early days of their relationship, and at the end, Tony had packed his things and moved out of the penthouse that night.

Rhodey had an apartment a few floors down for when he was staying over as War Machine and that was where Tony had hidden during the months following the breakup. God bless Rhodey, who had agreed to fly out and take Tony’s place on the team for as long as he needed so he could pull himself together before facing Bucky again. It had killed him to not be out there with the team but after the first time he completely fell apart when he bumped into Bucky in the hall, Pepper and Rhodey had managed to talk him into agreeing that some time off was necessary.

Maybe that was why he’d decided to go on the vacation to France, so that he could finally get some closure from this whole mess.

“Monsieur?” he hears someone ask.

“I’m okay,” Tony murmurs, wandering away towards the riverbank.

It isn’t true, not by a long shot but he settles down on the grass by the river, watching the boats go by, and he thinks that it might eventually be okay. _He_ might eventually be okay. The first few days of his trip here has been difficult. He hadn’t even left the hotel room, unable to bear going to the places he and Bucky were going to visit together. But today, he had forced himself outside and he’d found himself here, by this restaurant. He’s always loved the water, ever since he was a child growing up by the river behind Stark Mansion. It was why he had chosen the house in Malibu though there were plenty others that looked more expensive. It was why he had made sure the Tower had a view of the Hudson. It was why he had one of Monet’s _Waterlilies_ hanging in his bedroom.

He closes his eyes and relaxes, letting the stress of the last few months drain away. There’s a reason he had agreed to come here instead of going anywhere else. He lays back fully, letting the dappled sunlight coming through the trees warm him, almost wishing that he had kept the dinner reservation. If nothing else, it would have been an experience to talk about.

Then he hears someone quietly ask, “Tony?”

He freezes, muscles tensing all over again. Logically, he knows that he has to face Bucky eventually but he wishes it could have been later rather than sooner.

“May I sit down?” Bucky asks.

“It’s a free country,” he mutters.

Bucky laughs ruefully before a pause that Tony assumes means Bucky is indeed sitting down. “I was hoping I would find you here.”

“Why?”

“Because I owe you an apology.”

“Yeah, you sure do,” Tony agrees. Maybe Bucky is here to apologize but he doesn’t have to make it easy on him after the months of turmoil and anguish he’s been going through ever since Bucky first started disappearing during the evenings.

“You were right,” Bucky says eventually. “I was being a coward and you deserved better than that. I wasn’t cheating on you. I didn’t want to tell you because I was embarrassed. You’re so much smarter than I am, than just about _anyone_ is, and I thought I just looked stupid.”

“What were you doing?”

“Going to night classes.”

Tony is stunned silent. “ _What?”_ He opens his eyes and sits up, almost unable to understand what Bucky is saying. _This_ is what he was so ashamed of?

Bucky nods, hanging his head. “Yep. I know I shoulda told you earlier—Stevie told me I was making a mistake—but I didn’t want you to think I was dumb or something.”

“Why would you think I would ever think that?” he asks, a little hurt by the insinuation.

“Do you have any idea how smart you sound when you talk, doll?” Bucky asks, smiling ruefully. He runs his hand through his hair, the sunlight catching and gleaming on the metal. “I just wanted to keep up with you for once, let you have an actual conversation instead of having to talk at me all the time.”

“Bucky, _no_ ,” he says, dismayed. “Is that what you really think? Half the time, I’m just talking nonsense. Bucky, I _love_ talking to you.” He moves, swinging a leg over Bucky’s hip so that he can straddle him. “You can calculate bullet trajectories in your mind and hustle Sam at pool because you know just what angle you need to hit—Bucky, you’re _brilliant_ and I’m so sorry if I made you think you weren’t.”

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” Bucky protests, hands coming up automatically to rest on Tony’s waist. “I shoulda known you wouldn’t care. Shouldn’t’ve let my own insecurities get in the way of us, definitely shouldn’t’ve told you I was cheating on you ‘cause I was too ashamed to tell you the truth.”

Okay, he can’t deny that one. “That really hurt,” he admits softly. “I knew you were lying and that was even worse.”

“I know,” Bucky agrees. He reaches up to brush Tony’s hair away from his face. “I shouldn’t’ve lied. I’m sorry. I—I know I don’t have any right to ask this but do you think you could ever forgive me?”

Tony looks deep into his eyes, searching for any hint that he isn’t serious about this, that next time, things won’t change at all. “You have to promise to talk to me about things like this,” he insists.

“I promise,” Bucky says without any hesitation at all.

“No more lying to me because you’re embarrassed.”

“No more lying.”

“Not even about the stupid stuff.”

“…Not even about the stupid stuff.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “Bucky.”

“Yes, dear?”

“What are you hiding?”

“You really mean it? Not even the stupid stuff?”

“Yes,” he says firmly. “What are you hiding?”

Bucky reaches into his pocket and slowly pulls out a small box—too small for a watch, too large for cufflinks, but just the right size for—“Before this happened…I bought you a ring.”

He pops the box open, revealing a slim, silver band made out of what looks like interlocking plates, just like Bucky’s arm. Tony gapes at it, trying to put that together in his mind with everything they’ve been through over the last few months.

“But I think not yet,” Bucky continues. “Not until you know you can trust me.”

“Right,” Tony says faintly. It’s a good idea. He wants that reassurance to know that he’ll never be lied to again. And yet… “Can I have it?”

“For what?” Bucky asks, brow furrowing.

“Not for my finger,” Tony explains. “To put next to your dog tags, as a promise.” He smiles and pulls the chain off of his neck. Bucky hadn’t asked for it back and Tony…Tony hadn’t been able to stop wearing it as a reminder of when things had been better. “Not yet but soon.”

“Not yet,” Bucky echoes, a slow smile spreading across his face as he leans forward to kiss him. “But soon.”

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Work: Bucky is being suspicious and when Tony confronts him, he says that he's cheating on him. Tony thinks that he's lying but they break up. He later finds out that Bucky was attending night school but was too embarrassed to tell him.


End file.
